Springing ahead!

I am finally making progress on my current books-in-progress. For a while I was worried I was losing my touch. I've never had writer's block before, so this was a shocker.

I went back to some old techniques I learned long ago, probably at an RWA conference. On my one WIP (a mystery story), I set a definite goal: I want it 80% done by July 4. That's 75 days from the day I set my goal. So I wrote 75, 74, 73, etc., on a piece of paper, have it by my computer, and every day, I cross off a day. Seeing those numbers marching down the page have given me incentive to sit down every day and at least TRY to write. Since I started, I'm on chapter 3. Whee!

On my other multi-book series, I was struggling to recapture the essence of one character. I have a LOT of characters in this series, both current and future, and I switch back and forth between 8 major characters as I follow their lives. I came up with Character Traits. I decided on 6 one-word traits to describe each major character and each minor (not REAL minor, but not major) characters. That's about 20 people, and I sat down one night and really thought through each one and found a list of traits somewhere, and added them to the wiki page I have for each character.

Now when I put a character in a situation, I can go back there and say, "Well, Catherine wouldn't have done that" and realize that the scene is "out of character" for her.

I am so delighted by these simple techniques to help me get back on track. I look forward every day to crossing off that number, knowing that I'm

Now it's back to Writing As Usual for me.

What a relief!

J L
jayellwilson.com